Oh yeah. The character design department must've had fun!
It's been 12 years since the original Monsters, Inc., which was the 4th feature produced by Pixar in 2001. It was about the time when Pixar was really hitting their stride as a studio and right before the insane boom Pixar had with Finding Nemo. And even though the characters were charming and the film did well (pretty much becoming instant classic with both kids and adults) there really wasn't any need for a sequel. Not only did they finish all of the main character's story arcs, but it also solved the world's great energy problems in a fun and satisfying way. So the only logical way to bring back Mike and Sully to the big screen would be through a prequel. And so we take our main characters back to their college days, before they were top employees at Monsters, Inc., and when they were unknown students at Monsters University.
Mike's wisely at the forefront this time around.
For those not in the know, our two main characters are James P. Sullivan (aka Sully) and Mike Wazowski (John Goodman and Billy Crystal) who meet for the first time while attending school to learn how to become scarers. Scarers are monsters who enter children's rooms and scare them because they need those children's screams to power their way of life (wow, it's kinda a weird concept now that I've actually written it all down like that, but whatever. It works.) The tricky part is because this is a prequel, we already know exactly how it's all going to end. That said the film does a commendable job at keeping me guessing on how it's going to get there by having these characters start off in such a different places during Monsters University comparatively to the first movie (personality and relationship wise.) While Sully was definitely the heart and focus of Monsters, Inc., it's clear Monsters University is all about Mikey. Here Mike is an enthusiastic nerd with big dreams of becoming a scarer despite not being all that scary himself, and Sully is a lazy jock-like jerk who forgoes hard work and coasts through his classes mostly relying on his family's reputation and his natural talents.
Oh shit...just look at him! Something bad's gonna happen to this guy...
The two start off hating each other, so the film is all about how they grow to eventually become the inseparable duo we know from Monsters, Inc. It's great fun to see these two interact with each other in a new and interesting way. Not to spoil too much, but their rivalry is not only the cause of the film's major conflict, but it grows to a point where if they don't at least cooperate together, neither of them will get what they want. And once the movie ends and we get to familiar territory, it all felt like everything tied together nicely, and every piece of the puzzle finally landed in the right place. Even Randel, the villain from Monsters, Inc. voiced by Steve Buscemi, got a quick little backstory, and while they could have found a way for him to be more involved in the overarching story of this film, it was still a joy to see how he got to be so villinous.
The brothers of Oozma Kappa!
It's pretty much impossible not to compare this movie to Monsters, Inc., so let me get this out there right now: no, this movie isn't as good as Monsters, Inc., but it is really good in it's own right. Monsters, Inc. had a lot of unique things going for it that this movie just can't have because it is a prequel. Things such as the stakes being much higher in the original and the clever themes and parallels to real world energy problems. That and the "adorable factor" brought on by the human child Boo couldn't possibly be featured in this movie (due to her not even being born yet,) so don't expect any of that, which is a shame because she was one of the most memorable parts of the first movie. But you know what Monsters University is? It's fun. Hands down fun. It's a smaller, personal tale, but it's a fun one that has plenty of clever jokes for both adults and kids, and memorable characters and moments. The college setting allows for the writers to work in tons of references to college focused comedies like Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds. And it checks off all the college movie stereotypes in fun and wonderfully designed new monsters, such as the stuffy, no-nonsense dean (played by Hellen Mirren as some millipede/dragon hybrid) and the preppy, jerky frat-boy (played with wonderful ego from Nathan Fillion.) But the best gems are the new characters featured in Sully and Mike's fraternity "Oozma Kappa," which features an abundance of memorable moments from the charming "losers on campus." My favorite being Art, a newage philosophy major monster played by Charlie Day, who doesn't contribute anything of relevance to the plot, but has some great oneliners and his design is so much fun and different compared to the rest of the cast (he's like a fuzzy, purple slinky with a face! Brilliant!) Close second is Joel Murray's character, Don; a mature student whose optimistic attitude would almost put Ned Flanders to shame. Really the characters are why you come to see this movie; they're crazy fun in both their appearance their acting, animation and their writing.
So is this Pixar's deepest film? Definitely not. Even with a very poignant 3rd act and a surprisingly dramatic monologue from Billy Crystal's Mike, its themes don't nearly resonate as deeply as something like Wall-E, Up, Ratatouille, theToy Story franchise, or even Monsters, Inc. But is it one of Pixar's funniest films? Well... actually, probably. It's up there! Director Dan Scanlon doesn't have many productions under his belt, but he really managed to make this a creatively fun feature with some genuinely hilarious visual humour and even some much needed heart to this story. So if you want a fun time, something to just take your mind off and watch some enjoyable animation, this is definitely a good one to see. And while it's not as great as Pixar in it's heyday it's definitely a step up from what they've been producing in recent years.
And at the very least, hey! At least it's not another Cars sequel!
If yew had the chance to change yewr fate, woudjya?
I feel kinda bad for Pixar. It's tough to be on top. With an amazing run of movies, a couple of which have cemented their place in cinema history, the expectations of them are insanely high. I think that's why everyone was a little bit taken aback last summer when Cars 2 rolled out. It was the first Pixar movie most people could look at and say, "y'know, that wasn't very good." Especially when you consider the amazing slew of movies that came just before that (Toy Story 3, Up, and Wall-E.) With that in mind, people want everything from Brave. They want it to be the end all, be all, Pixar film. Back to form. Back on top! And now that it's here I can proudly report to you all that Brave is...good. Yes, it's good. Brave is a good movie. Is it another instant classic that will once again be some of the best storytelling Hollywood has to offer? No. But it's good. I understand being simply "good" to some people is a disappointment, but read on and you'll see there's plenty to love in this feature, as well as some choices that, in my opinion, don't quite pay off. Not to mention a huge bait and switch by Pixar that may prove to be the film's undoing.
First of all, let's start with the best part of Brave, the visuals. Holy hell, to say this movie is a feast for the eyes is an understatement. It's a 10 course meal and an after dinner mint for your eyes. After this movie your eyes will never go hungry again. Taken place in medieval Scotland, Pixar once again pushes it's rendering techniques to a whole new level, showing some amazing vistas of the Scottish highlands. Graphic nerds will go ga-ga over some of the beautiful details in the textures, as well as the amazing physics on the gorgeously untamed red curls of Merida (our main character.) And the animation is once again top notch. Every character moves in such unique ways. Every little nuance in the movements is perfectly planned out, giving memorable quirks and an abundance of personality to this cast of characters.
The royal family: I love em all!
Speaking of the characters, I love them. Every character in the movie, I loved. There was something about their chemistry, and the way they all were presented that just gave every character an enjoyable performance (with only some reservations about a witch character, who at points seems like she was in the wrong movie.) Merida's family took front and center: the loving yet overbearing mother Queen Elinor (played by Emma Thompson,) the rambunctious yet kind hearted father King Fergus (played by Billy Connolly,) and three minuscule, mischief-making, mute triplets who provided a bulk of the movie's visual and slap-slick humour. Speaking of humour special mention should go out to the three feuding clan leaders and their respective hopeful suitor's for the hand of Princess Merida. While not overall that important to the story, the clans of Dingwall, MacGuffin and MacIntosh (I see what you did there Pixar) definitely gave the best laughs of the movie.
But I've yet to mention specifically about our main character, Merida (played by Kelly MacDonald.) True, she's a pretty big cliche in the respect that she's a princess longing for more, and desires freedom from her royal duties, but Pixar does its best to give her such a twist in her personality to make her more then just a "girls can kick ass too" character. She's a bit of a goof. She loves a good laugh. She can be undignified, yet charming. And all these characteristics are strengthened even more when she interacts with the other characters, such as her father. On the ball, Merida and her family feel and act like real people. It's skillfully acted in both the voices and in the animation, and they're able to get some great emotion from the performances. Something tells me if these characters were inserted into a more interesting plot, this would be a grade A movie. And yet...
This gorgeous promotional art doesn't accurately portray the plot...but it looks nice!
Ok, now we come down to the elephant in the room: the plot. Or rather, the misleading plot. While I won't spoil anything in this review, I will say that the trailers don't showcase an event that happens at the beginning of the 2nd act of the movie, and this huge event is what brings about the rest of the movie's plot. Most of the times I like being surprised by not knowing the true nature of a movie's plot, but in this case the plot transformed what I believed was to be an epic adventure on a grand scale to a very small story about the importance of family...and that's kinda lame.It's a shame too, because we're already in such an aforementioned beautiful and epic setting that it just screams for a larger scale story. It's like expecting Lord of the Rings, and instead getting a movie where hobbits never leave The Shire and have breakfast, or something. The potential to do a story on a grander scale is there, it's just never really taken advantage of and that's a shame. I mean, it is possible to have a film about the importance of family and still make it epic. Hell, Pixar already did it. It was called The Incredibles. And it was awesome.
Sadly, this picture more accurately portrays the plot
So for a moment let's ignore that the adventurous character of Merida is not used to her fullest potential. And let's ignore the fact that this is not the sprawling epic that Pixar advertised to us. Removed from our expectations, does this film's plot still hold up as a good movie? The answer is a resounding...kinda. And again, this is hard to explain without exposing the movie's massive twist, but I'll do my best. Long story short, the plot we get feels very safe. Critics have said that this is Pixar's take on a Disney princess story, which isn't 100% true. While Merida does show a lot of the same characteristics and desires as a standard Disney princess has (all be it with a very Pixar-ish way of portraying the character,) this film is not a lot of things Disney princess movies are. It's not a musical, it's not based on a well known fairytale, and most of all it's not a love story (thank God.) It can, however, be perfectly compared to another Disney animated movie that is not a princess tale at all...but again even saying the name of this movie would spoil Brave's secret plot twist. Sooo...ugh! Damn it Pixar! See how hard it is to talk about your movie?!
Ok, fine! Last thing I'll say about the movie's plot, and hopefully you'll get what I'm saying. The movie shares less to do with The Little Mermaid and more to do with Freaky Friday. That's right, the live action teen comedy where the mother and daughter switch bodies and come to better understand each other through this magical happenstance. The focus in Brave is clearly the relationship between daughter and mother. And honestly, that's not a bad idea, and I like having the focus on two female leads for a change, but they just don't make it terribly exciting. Hell, one of the major climaxes of the film is Merida giving a speech while her mother watches on. What doesn't help the matter is the fact that we don't really have a true villain in this film. Most of the conflict arises from a series of character's misunderstandings, which doesn't do the best job of ramping up the drama. True, there is an antagonistic element in the feared "demon bear" Mordu (who is skillfully designed to be a wonderfully terrifying beast,) but he's much more of a force of nature then a true villain for our mother/daughter duo, and in that respect only poses a physical challenge rather then providing a true conflict for our characters to overcome.
Badass archery. It's so in right now.
The first thing I said once I got out of the theatre seeing Brave was "that was different," and it really is, but not really in a positive way. There are elements from Disney films, and tropes from Pixar's past, but they both come together to make a film that doesn't feel like either studio's work. It's a weird Frankenstein of a film that doesn't hit the highs it was aiming for, but it's still a commendable effort. And honestly, if it wasn't for the amazing execution that comes with a Pixar movie in terms of acting, animation, and visual fidelity, this could have been easily a straight up bad movie. But lucky for us, it's not. It's just good. And that's alright. Maybe it's time to realize that the folks at Pixar aren't the invincible Gods we make them out to be, sitting on Mount Olympus manufacturing animated films into pure gold. We should face the fact that not every Pixar film will be gold. Some like Brave will be silver, and some will be "Cars 2" bronze (especially with the prequel, Monster University, coming up as their next feature. Honestly, one can only get so excited over the prospect of a prequel.) Maybe then we won't be so disappointed when a just plain ol' good movie like Brave comes out. Either way, Brave, while not what is expected, could have been much worse in less capable hands, and still rightfully deserves paying a trip to visit the highlands and these wonderfully enduring characters.
Love it or hate it, Valentines Day is here again! And what better thing to do with your loved one then to sit around Feb 14 and watch some heart warming animated goodies.
I certainly can’t think of anything better to do. Other than going dancing, going out for a romantic walk, making a special home cooked dinner, or having seeeeee…conds of said delicious homecooked meal. Regardless, I love to love some lovely cartoons about love with my lovely lover. (Love.) So here I present some Cupid-approved cartoons for you and your hunnybun, smoochy-poo or snuggly bear to watch on this V-tines Day. No need to thank me.
Pepé Le Pew
Here’s the thing. If it wasn’t for his natural stink, I think Pepé would actually be quite a catch. I mean he’s romantic, suave, dramatic, spontaneous, and persistant….well, ok, maybe a little too persistant. Yeah, leave it to Looney Tunes to make even sexual harassment hilarious. But seriously though, if you and your partner love to watch endless flirtations and unrequited love with hilarious results, you can’t go wrong with a dashing french skunk and a cat that has a knack for getting a white line painted on her in numerous creative fashions. And hey! It’s a good lesson for the guys too. Guys, it doesn’t matter how great of a man you are; never underestimate the powers of personal hygiene.
True, many golden-age Disney stuff has to do with love, or finding love, or being in love, but instead of heading straight to one of the many princess movies Disney has, I’m choosing Lady and the Tramp for the most romantic. That’s right. The one with the dogs and the spagetti. Why? Well, in my opinion, it’s the most complete love story. Many of the classic princess movies have the princess long for Prince Bland (honestly, they’re pretty interchangeable) and eventually they wind up together. But Lady and the Tramp? The whole movie is about their love! You see both sides meet, start off not liking each other, then overtime their love blossoming. It’s probably the most developed romantic relationship that ol’ Walt actually worked on. Plus, who doesn’t want to accidentally kiss their sweetheart while being serenaded by a glorious Italian stereotype? That’s romance, baby!
Arnold’s Valentine
Hey Arnold was one of those shows where the main character wasn’t the reason why you watched the show. I mean, sure, Arnold’s a nice kid, but the real draw was the character of Helga. She was interesting, and also what made the show memorable. Her whole shtick was she was infatuated with Arnold (sometimes to the point of being an obsessive stalker) but didn’t know how to deal with those emotions, so she ended up bullying him. Some of the more memorable episodes dealt with her emotional conundrums, but the first one to take it a bit more seriously was Arnold’s Valentine. In it, Helga got an extreem makeover to disguise herself as Arnold’s french penpal in a hope to express her true feelings for him, while at the same time Arnold has to split his night with the disguised Helga, and a date he set up with his elementary school crush. The result is both classic sit-com hilarity, as well as a strangely mature and poignent statement about love and crushes. Especially for a kid’s show in the 90s. And for Nickelodeon. If you haven’t seen it, or it’s been a while since you’ve seen it, I say check this one out.
WALL-E
Robots in love. Let me repeat that: ROBOTS IN LOVE! It’s hard to think of a concept for a movie cuter than that. Also happening to be one of my favorite movies of all time for it’s script, sound design, animation, as well as simply having a feature length movie with hardly any dialogue, this film also get the nod for being one of the best animated love stories of all time. It’s still too young of a movie to say, but I really do hope the “define dancing” scene from this movie goes down in history as one of the most iconic scenes in animation. Do I really need to say anymore? If you have a heart, it will be melted by the time the credits roll on this one. See it with your significant other, then get ready for some extreem cuddling. Thank you, Pixar!
Ok, just a quick thing on the Oscar noms for best animated feature in 2012. The nominations are A Cat in Paris, Chico and Rita, Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, and Rango.
Here’s my thoughts. First of all, let’s touch on the movies that didn’t make it. I’m glad Cars 2 didn’t slip on by this year, even with their previous Pixar cred. That movie was bad, and maybe it’ll be a nice wakeup call to Pixar. Winnie the Poohis sadly missing, which is another blow to Disney continuing hard-drawn animation. That’s a bit of a shame; I wish it took the place of one of the Dreamworks movies. Tintin is probably the biggest surprise though, having it already won the Golden Globe for animation. While lots of the animation community is happy it’s not there, stating how motion capture isn’t true animation so it shouldn’t even be considered for the category, I still think it should have been up there (again, instead of one of the Dreamworks movies.) And either way, I think it just wasn’t nominated based on it’s merit as a film, and not because of the use of mo-cap. So anti mo-cap people: you can take this as a victory if you want, but at the end of the day I’m pretty sure Hollywood’s still going to qualify this as animation. So tough cookies.
I’m glad to see 2 indie flicks on there with A Cat in Paris and Chico and Rita. I’ll need to track those down as soon as I can. But at the end of the day, usually the mainstream still wins, so my money’s on the winner being Rango. It’s not a perfect film, but it was a great blend of something new with something old, and of course it looked amazing. We’ll see if I’m right come February.
- Moo
(Also…”Man or Muppet” from The Muppets got nominated for best song…there is some good in the world…)
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